Chapter 21
Curious Questions
T am staggered away from Eli’s cabin back to his own, but as the ship started to rock more noticeably beneath his feet, he wondered if perhaps he should have accepted her help getting there. By the time he finally reached the end of the passage and rested his hand on the door handle, he was forced to swallow down bile that burned the back of his throat. He hoped the sheen of sweat over his forehead wasn’t too noticeable in the dim light of the lanterns.
His mental preparations were interrupted, however, when the door to his cabin swung open on its own. There stood Luca, breathing hard, tears already falling down his face.
Tam blinked down at him, caught by surprise, but when the child saw his father standing before him, he burst out into fresh sobs.
Instantly forgetting about his pain and nausea, Tam hurriedly stepped forward, knelt, and hugged Luca, angling his wound away from the embrace. He could feel the boy’s tears soaking through his tunic as he held him, and he could smell the wind in Luca’s tangled black hair from having spent most of his day outdoors.
“I’m alright,” Tam murmured with a grand attempt at sounding comforting.
Luca still couldn’t bring himself to speak, and so Tam didn’t release him. He simply allowed his son to cry as long as he wished, though the longer it carried on, the more uncomfortable Tam’s right knee became. Soon it was wobbling on the wooden planks of the deck.
Just as he was about to gently tell his son he really needed to lie or sit down, Luca pulled away, hastily wiping his tears from his face with the sleeve of his tunic.
“S-sorry for crying, Tam,” the boy managed while sniffling.
Tam tousled his hair and gave a half smile he hoped didn’t betray any of the pain he was in… or the fact that he was moderately inebriated.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. It was frightening. Even I wasn’t sure what would happen.”
Luca’s hands gripped his own pant legs as his brows stroked downward to a frown. “Why didn’t the captain take care of them on his own?”
Tam pushed himself back up to a standing position, doing his best to make his expression appear pensive rather than anguished from the action.
“That’s because I’m a lord, and as the highest-ranking person on this ship, I should be responsible for everyone. Especially because I’m the whole reason they’re here.”
“My Uncle Liam said you don’t have a title yet, but that you’ll be a duke one day,” the boy recalled offhandedly.
Tam pursed his lips while guiding Luca to the table and chairs in his cabin. “The firstborn sons in noble families are still lords. They don’t have official titles until they inherit, but… There you have it. And I might just be a viscount. Not a duke.”
“Why’s that?” Luca plunked himself down across from Tam while giving his nose another cursory wipe with the back of his sleeve.
“Mm, that’s a bit complicated to explain right now.” Tam’s head was already hurting, making his thoughts sluggish, thanks to his need for sleep. Despite this, he knew he had to address one particular thing before going to bed. “Luca, in the future, I need you to swear to me that you’ll listen if I or Eli tells you to stay put. You could have been hurt today, or seen things you shouldn’t have.”
At this, Luca’s shoulders widened. He locked eyes with his father. “A man doesn’t back down from a fight.”
Tam didn’t respond straight away.
Instead, he pondered this reaction…
He thought back to Rosaline’s brother, Liam… He had been all about appearing strong and being the most powerful person in a room, so it did make sense that he would have hammered in a principle like that one.
Regardless, it was a bad lesson to enforce on a child.
And so he looked at his son levelly and said, “Promise me, Luca. Or I’ll have to find a way to send you back to Daxaria without me. I’m sorry, but I can’t have you putting yourself in danger. I’ll be too worried. Then again, maybe you’d prefer going back. I can arrange for you to be received by my father, Duke Finlay Ashowan, and he will take care of you until I return.”
As Tam spoke, he wearily rubbed his left eye as his mind stumbled through everything he would need to do to give Luca safe passage home. Perhaps he would send Eli back with him. That wouldn’t be an issue, either; she would probably prefer staying out of the kingdom that had given her nothing but pain…
Then the sound of Luca’s rapid breaths through his nose reached Tam’s ears and registered in his clouded mind.
Looking up, Tam saw that Luca’s eyes were shining once more with tears.
“I’m sorry,” Luca croaked, his hands fidgeting under the table. “I-I promise I won’t get in the way again—I’m sorry I-I-I didn’t listen, I’ll be better, I promise, I’ll—”
Tam stood, even though it made the sharp agony bite hard into his flesh, rounded the table, and crouched down to be eye level with his son. He was relatively certain he broke a stitch doing it, but he didn’t care.
“I want to be with you, Luca. I only just got to meet you, and I’ve loved having our nightly meetings where we get to stargaze. But that also means I hate the thought of something happening to you. You scared me today more than you could ever imagine when I saw you come upstairs while those pirates were aboard.”
Luca didn’t stop fidgeting or stave off a fresh wave of tears, but at least his anguished expression had eased a little. “I thought you were gonna die today,” he confessed, his nose already dripping again, prompting Tam to reach over with the sleeve of his own tunic and wipe Luca’s face.
“I’m not going to die today, and I don’t plan on dying tomorrow, either, and most important, I don’t want you dying today, tomorrow, next month, or even in twenty years. You have to live until you’re a hunched-over old man. The kind of old man that farts without knowing it, and even if he did? He wouldn’t care.”
At this, Luca let out a burbling laugh.
Tam smiled. Fart jokes always went over well with his nephews; he was glad it seemed to be the same for Luca.
“So you promise to listen if I tell you to hide?”
Luca’s mouth flattened and he looked down with obvious displeasure. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” Tam squeezed Luca’s upper left arm. “It’d be a shame to not get to spend as much time as possible together, don’t you think?”
All the troubled feelings that had moved across Luca’s face during their conversation melted away. A corner of his mouth lifted, just a bit, as if he weren’t sure he was allowed to grin.
Seeing this, Tam smiled broadly and said, “How about we go to sleep for tonight. Tomorrow… what do you think about cutting your hair?”
Luca paused, staring at him. “My… my mother said my eyes scared people.”
Tam had to fight off his alarmed reaction, but once again he forced himself not to comment on Luca’s upbringing. “Well, they don’t scare me. Or Eli. We all have brown eyes. Isn’t that interesting?”
“My mother had dark-blue eyes.”
Nodding, Tam stood back up. “That she did. I remember when I met her, they reminded me of dark sapphires.”
Luca leaned forward. “She says you had a nice voice and she didn’t expect it.”
Tam chuckled while also subtly gesturing Luca toward his hammock. “She wouldn’t have been the first person to say that about me.”
“Did you love her?” While Luca may have asked the question in a casual tone, the fragility in his face told Tam it was anything but. And so he prayed to the Goddess that his drunken mind could come up with an appropriate response.
“I… I really liked Rosaline. And I think she really liked me, but your mother is very committed to running her business—as she should be! She’s wonderful at it, and I was young at the time, and she was a bit older, and it just wasn’t meant to be more.”
Luca climbed into his hammock, an earnest glint in his eyes. “If she wasn’t as focused on her business, would you two have loved each other then?”
Tam felt his insides curling and writhing. He wished his son had known the same happy, wholesome upbringing he had experienced growing up. “I’m not sure, Luca, but I will say… regardless of how we ended, I’m glad you exist.”
Luca froze. Foreign emotionlessness took him over as he stared blankly at Tam.
“Luca…? Luca, are you alright?”
Just as abruptly as it had come on, the spell ended. Luca blinked and stared up at Tam with his usual nervous adoration.
“Yeah, everything’s fine… Do you think there’ll be any more pirates, though?”
Tam chuckled. “I sure hope not. Let’s cross our fingers that we have a peaceful time through the rest of our trip.”
“Eli says crossing our fingers isn’t good because it confuses fate on whether it should give you good or bad luck.”
Tam balked. “As in… She thinks fate is a person…?”
Luca shrugged. “I don’t know, but she got upset about it when I said the same thing! Also!” Luca dropped his voice to a whisper. “Aren’t we supposed to keep saying Eli’s a boy?”
Fighting off a smile, Tam nodded and lowered his voice to match Luca’s. “Yes. You’re absolutely right.”
“Why does she want to pretend to be a boy, though?” Luca whispered even more quietly.
“She feels safer pretending to be a man than being a woman.”
“Oh…” Luca paused thoughtfully, then nodded to himself. “Are you and Eli in love?”
Tam’s eyes bulged and his mouth went taught in surprise. “No we are not. Why do you ask?” he forced out calmly.
“Because you are always together, you keep secrets for each other… and… and you smile more when she’s around.”
This observation succeeded in stunning the future duke. Fortunately for him, Luca was already turning over in his hammock, preparing to go to sleep. When Tam eventually returned to his senses enough to notice he was standing staring at the cabin wall, he moved to his own bed, snuffing out the candles and lanterns on the way, his thoughts fluttering around aimlessly.
The longer Tam found himself on the ship with Eli and Luca, the more mysteries cropped up.
What creature was terrorizing Zinfera’s ships? What had happened to Luca earlier that had him react so bizarrely when Tam had said he was happy he existed? Why was Luca so fixated on love? And lastly… Why in the world was Tam finding himself smiling more and more around Eli?
Lying down without bothering to turn down the covers, Tam stared at the ceiling above, then laughed as it struck him: Maybe I’m getting a little more interested in Eli because I know she’s a woman, and maybe it’s because I haven’t been this close to someone… well… ever.
Tam closed his eyes and fought off a louder laugh.
Or I might be getting a crush because I’m in a lot of new situations and need someone to rely on. Or because I’ve been thinking about marriage a lot more with Luca being around. It makes sense that it’d happen, but… I’m sure I’ll get over it.